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Old 06-08-2013, 11:35 AM
gary
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gary is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Mt. Kuring-Gai
Posts: 5,999
On this day, August 6th, at this spot

Some years ago, I stood in front of a plaque outside of a car-park in a little side-street in
Japan. There was nothing particularly distinguished about the street. It could
have been a lane way anywhere in the world. Apart from the plaque, there was
no visual indication that anything out of the ordinary had ever happened there.

Here is a picture of the street -
http://www.nextstopworld.com/wp-cont...-plaque-WS.jpg

You can never really say you have been to some particular place, only that you have
been to that place at a particular moment in time.

As I read the words on the plaque I pondered what it must have been like at this place
at that instant in time only a few short decades earlier.

Some of the words read that the heat rays had reached approximately 3000C to 4000C.
Temperatures that I associated with the surfaces of some stars.

The words in full read -
Quote:

Hypocenter

Carried to Hiroshima from Tinian Island by the Enola Gay, a U.S. Army B-29
bomber, the first atomic bomb used in the history of humankind exploded
approximately 600 meters above this spot. The city below was hit by heat rays
of approximately 3,000 to 4,000 °C along with a blast wind and radiation. Most
people in the area lost their lives instantly. The time was 8:15 a.m., August 6, 1945.
The plaque here -
http://www.nextstopworld.com/wp-cont...laque-text.jpg
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